1. Introduction

1.1 The Global Platform for Action are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website and visitors.

1.2 This policy applies where we are acting as a data controller with respect to the personal data of our website visitors and service users; in other words, where we determine the purposes and means of the processing of that personal data. This policy applies to all of our websites.

1.3 By using the Global Platform for Action website and agreeing to this policy, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy.

1.4 In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" refer to the Global Platform for Action. For more information about the Global Platform for Action and how to contact us, see Section 14.

2. How we use your personal data

2.1 In this Section 2 we have set out:

  • (a) the general categories of personal data that we may process;
  • (b) Any personal data that we did not obtain directly from you, the source and specific categories of that data;
  • (c) the purposes for which we may process personal data; and
  • (d) the legal bases of the processing.

2.2 We may process data about your use of our website and services ("usage data"). The usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your service use. The source of the usage data is our analytics tracking system, Google Analytics. This usage data may be processed for the purposes of analysing the use of the website and services. The legal basis for this processing is consent.

2.3 We may process information contained in any enquiry you submit to us regarding goods and/or services ("enquiry data"). The enquiry data may be processed for the purposes of offering, marketing and selling relevant goods and/or services to you. The legal basis for this processing is consent.

2.4 We may process information contained in or relating to any communication that you send to us ("correspondence data"). The correspondence data may include the communication content and metadata associated with the communication. Our website will generate the metadata associated with communications made using the website contact forms. The correspondence data may be processed for the purposes of communicating with you and record-keeping. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business and communications with users.

2.5 Please do not supply any other person's personal data to us unless we prompt you to do so.

3. Providing your personal data to others

3.1 We may disclose names, postal address, email address and phone number (personal data) to any member of our group of companies (this means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and all its subsidiaries) in so far as reasonably necessary for the purposes, and on the legal bases, set out in this policy.

3.2 We may disclose your personal data to our insurers and/or professional advisers in so far as reasonably necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, obtaining professional advice, or the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.

3.3 In addition to the specific disclosures of personal data set out in this Section 3, we may disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person. We may also disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.

4. Retaining and deleting personal data

4.1 This Section 4 sets out our data retention policies and procedure, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data.

4.2 Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.

4.3 We will retain your personal data as follows:

  • (a) Usage Data will be retained for a maximum of 10 years since your personal data was last logged on the website;
  • (b) Enquiry Data will be retained for a minimum period of 12 months following the submission on the enquiry and for a maximum period of 10 years following submission on the enquiry;
  • (c) Correspondence Data will be retained for a minimum period of 12 months following the date of submission, and for a maximum period of 10 years following last correspondence.

4.4 In some cases it is not possible for us to specify in advance the periods for which your personal data will be retained. In such cases, we will determine the period of retention based on the following criteria:

  • (a) the period of retention of name(s), postal address, email address(es) and phone number(s) will be determined based on whether it falls under usage, enquiry or correspondence.

4.5 Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section 4, we may retain your personal data where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.

5. Security of personal data

5.1 We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access, alteration or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

5.2 Your data is held on our website on Iomarts secure UK server. The data is not accessible or used by the server company. Find Iomart’s Privacy Policy here.

5.3 Your data is also stored on secure computers in our offices in United Nations Institute For Training And Research, Chemin des Anémones 11-13, 1219 Châtelaine, Switzerland.

6. Amendments

6.1 We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.

6.2 You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy.

6.3 We may notify you of changes to this policy by email.

7. Your rights

7.1 In this Section 7, we have summarised the rights that you have under GDPR data protection law. Some of the rights are complex, and not all of the details have been included in our summaries. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.

7.2 Your principal rights under data protection law are:

  • (a) the right to access;
  • (b) the right to rectification;
  • (c) the right to erasure;
  • (d) the right to restrict processing;
  • (e) the right to object to processing;
  • (f) the right to data portability;
  • (g) the right to complain to a supervisory authority; and
  • (h) the right to withdraw consent.

7.3 You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee.

7.4 You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.

7.5 In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include: the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; you withdraw consent to consent-based processing; you object to the processing under certain rules of applicable data protection law; the processing is for direct marketing purposes; and the personal data have been unlawfully processed. However, there are exclusions of the right to erasure. The general exclusions include where processing is necessary: for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; for compliance with a legal obligation; or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

7.6 In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest to the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful, but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.

7.7 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the processing is necessary for: the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of any official authority vested in us; or the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

7.8 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.

7.9 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes on grounds relating to your particular situation, unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.

7.10 To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:

  • (a) consent; or
  • (b) that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract,

and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.

7.11 If you consider that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection. You may do so in the EU member state of your habitual residence, your place of work or the place of the alleged infringement.

7.12 To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.

7.13 You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice or via e-mail to us, in addition to the other methods specified in this Section.

8. Third party websites

8.1 Our website includes hyperlinks to, and details of, third party websites.

8.2 We have no control over, and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.

9. Updating information

9.1 Please let us know if the personal information that we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

10. About cookies

10.1 A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

10.2 Cookies may be either "persistent" cookies or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

10.3 Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

11. Cookies that we use

11.1 We use cookies for the following purposes:

  • (a) to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services (cookies used for this purpose are: _utma, _utmb and _utmc_)
  • (b) to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally (cookies used for this purpose are: exp_cookies_allowed, exp_cookies_accepted, exp_cookies_declined, exp_last_activity, exp_last_visit, exp_tracker, exp_csrf_token).

12. Cookies used by our service providers

12.1 Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.

12.2 We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google's privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. Google Analytics uses the following cookies:_utma This randomly generated number is used to determine unique visitors to our site. It expires after 2 years. _utmb. This randomly generated number works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time users spend on our site. It expires after 30 minutes. _utmc This randomly generated number works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browser.It expires when you close your browser._utmz This is a randomly generated number and information about how the site was reached (e.g. direct or via a link, organic search or paid search). It expires after 6 months.

12.3 Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website. We use exp_cookies_allowed, exp_cookies_accepted or exp_cookies_declined to track and respect your choices. Around all our websites we use cookies to remember where you are and to help and protect you. We use exp_last_activity so every time the page is reloaded the last activity is set to the current date and time. It is used to determine form or login expiry. This is essential for logged in users to record their data and not lose it as it is being input. The expiry time 12 months. exp_last_visit Sets the date and time that the you last visited the site. Affects guests and logged in users. The expiry time is 12 months. exp_tracker Tracks the last 5 pages you viewed and is used primarily for redirection after some actions on the site ie moving back to pages. This affects guests and logged in users. This cookie expires when you leave the site. We also use exp_csrf_token. This cookie protects against Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF). A CSRF attack forces a logged-on victim’s browser to send a forged HTTP request, including the victim’s session cookie and any other automatically included authentication information, to a vulnerable web application. It expires from your computer after one hour.

13. Managing cookies

13.1 Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:

  • (a) https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Chrome);
  • (b) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences (Firefox);
  • (c) http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/ (Opera);
  • (d) https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Internet Explorer);
  • (e) https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21411 (Safari); and
  • (f) https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy (Edge).

You can manage your cookie preferences for this website here. 

13.2 Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

13.3 If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.

14. Our details

14.1 This website is owned and operated by the Global Platform for Action.

14.2 Our principal place of business is Global Platform for Action, c/o United Nations Institute For Training And Research, 7 bis, Avenue de la Paix, CH-1202 Geneva 2, Switzerland.

14.3 You can contact us:

  • (a) by post, to the postal address given above;
  • (b) using our website contact form;
  • (c) by telephone, on the contact number published on our website from time to time; 
  • (d) by email, using the email address published on our website from time to time; or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Last updated: 05/10/2022